Broken Wings
by AfricanDaisy
Summary: Neldiel finds something broken to care for, and she earns some wise advice in the process.


**Disclaimer: Anything recognisable as Tolkien's is not mine, but any OCs belong to me and my co-writer Kaylee. We are not making any money from this.**

**A/N: Thank you to anyone following this series!**

The best sort of playtime was when one discovered a new friend, Neldiel Brandiriel had always thought, and that exact thing had happened today. She had been playing in the garden when she had come across a little bird, just a fledgling, flapping helplessly in Lady Siliveth's shrubbery. Whatever accident had put it in the bushes had damaged its wing, and Neldiel knew that if she just left the baby, a fox would come along in the night and take it for a meal. Supposing that the bird had fallen from its nest, the elfling had made a new nest for it out of a wooden box filled with grass and leaves. She had even gathered a bowl full of fat, squishy worms, for her new feathery charge to eat.

Unfortunately, just as she was heading for the stairs after successfully navigating her way undetected – sneaking – past her mother in the garden, her father was leaving his study a little further down the hall. He paused when his eyes fell on her, but then he strode quickly to intercept her before she could disappear. "Neldiel, you are filthy," he observed critically, folding his arms over his chest in a way that said quite clearly that he disapproved.

Neldiel thought that was a rather rude way for a father to greet his daughter. "I fell down in the mud, Ada," she said patiently, concealing the worms behind her back. Her sleight of hand did not go unnoticed, and when Brandir demanded to know what she was hiding, she sighed and promised it was nothing. She made her turquoise eyes go very round. Her eldest sister said that her eyes could charm birds from the trees and stars from the sky – she had tried, but it hadn't worked – so she hoped her father would fall under her spell.

He didn't.

"Show me what you are hiding. Both hands together," Lord Brandir added, as his daughter drew her left hand out from behind her back and kept her right hidden away. She sighed softly again, but obeyed, and then it was the loremaster's turn to sigh as his gaze fell upon a bowl of wriggling worms all coated in specks of dirt. "Worms, Neldiel. You dug in the mud to find _worms. _Why?"

"I like worms," Neldiel said flatly.

"You are not permitted to have them."

"I've got a pony."

That made Brandir pause, though not for long. He could not summon the energy to try and reason out his child's logic. "Worms require dirt," he said sternly, "and other than that which is already on you, there shall be none of it in this house. Say a quick goodbye to the worms, for they are going back outside now."

"Ada, no!"

Brandir winced as the elfling flung her arms around his waist and sent droplets of mud and flecks of dirt spattering over his immaculate white and silver robes; he thought a bit might even have landed in his hair, though he tried not to think about that. "Worms belong outside and that is right where they are going," he repeated, struggling to maintain his dignity as he balanced the bowl in one hand and disengaged Neldiel's arms from him with the other.

"Ada, no, I _need _them," Neldiel pleaded. "Please let me have them."

"Why?"

"It…it's a s-secret…"

Hesitating as he realised that his daughter was close to tears, Brandir did not wince this time as she put dirty arms around him and buried her earth-streaked face in his robes. The damage was already done. "Tell me why it is so important you keep these…creatures."

"You might be mad," Neldiel mumbled against the lord's side, her voice muffled.

Brandir sighed to himself. 'You might be mad' usually meant 'you will be mad', and he had learnt never to respond to that with a promise that he would not. Such promises were difficult to keep, and they usually ended with Neldiel tearfully accusing him of breaking his word and demanding to know why he had done it, and by the time he managed to appease her, he had forgotten what had made him so angry in the first place. He certainly couldn't rely on Neldiel to help him recall exactly what he had been scolding her for. "I shall try not to be _mad_, as you say, iel-laes," Brandir conceded. "How is that?"

After carefully considering the proposition and finding it acceptable, Neldiel gave her father a brief nod. "There's a bird in my bedroom," she began. "He was walking…hmm, more like hopping…with his wing all bent. He couldn't fly. So I picked him up and brought him inside, and I'm going to heal him so that he can fly again."

"And you collected the worms to feed him," Brandir concluded, studying the squirming contents of the bowl. He looked down at his daughter then, and not unkindly, asked, "How much do you know about caring for birds?"

"Not that much," Neldiel admitted reluctantly.

"Not that much," Brandir agreed. "How about we pay a visit to your Daeradar Ravondir? He will be pleased to help." As Neldiel gasped in delight and slipped her grubby hand into his, he sighed quietly, but he gave it a reassuring squeeze all the same. Mud and worms and Valar only knew what else…not for the first time, nor probably the last time, Brandir thought that his dainty little daughter ought to have been a boy.

When they were both cleaned up and in fresh clothes, they collected the tiny bluebird from Neldiel's bedroom and settled it in a small wooden box lined with soft scraps from an old blanket. Brandir watched his youngest child on the hour-long carriage ride through the woods, and he smiled slightly to see how she oh-so-carefully used the tip of her finger to stroke the bird's delicate head. Every so often, Neldiel would glance up at him anxiously, and he returned her looks with reassuring ones of his own. He knew that his father-in-law _would _help, but he hoped that he _could_, that it wasn't too late or the damage too severe. Lord Ravondir's primary interest was birds of prey, but he would never turn away any smaller creature, especially when one of his grandchildren trusted him to help it.

Upon their arrival at the manor house, they were shown to Ravondir's study by a servant whose dark green livery bore an eagle with outstretched talons. Protocol demanded that Neldiel give her noble grandfather a curtsey, but instead she rushed up to him the moment they were through the door, and told him without preamble, "Daerada, I've got a bird!"

Brandir sighed and greeted his wife's father more quietly, before transferring the box to the other lord's hands. "I hope you can help us with the bird, Ravondir. Neldiel is quite attached to it."

"Can you help him, Daerada?" Neldiel demanded. "His wing is broken and he can't fly."

Ordinarily, Ravondir might have scolded his youngest granddaughter for her lack of propriety, but her enthusiasm for the bird's welfare clearly impressed him enough that he was prepared to overlook her behaviour. Moving his work aside, he set the box down on his desk and pushed back the pale green sleeves of his robes before using cupped hands to lift the little bird out of the blanket folds. "Let me see that the wing _is _broken, daeriel."

"I'm not stupid," Neldiel grumbled. "I wouldn't say it was broken if it wasn't."

Ravondir smiled faintly as his deft fingers gently probed the blue-feathered creature quivering in his carefully firm grip. "Sometimes a fledgling on the ground is not injured, it has just not learnt to fly. But you were right to bring this little one to me. I will immobilise the wing, and keep the bird until it is well."

"How long will that take?" Neldiel asked.

"A few weeks. I shall take good care of it," Ravondir promised.

"Him," the elfling absently corrected her grandfather. "May I visit him?"

Ravondir glanced at Brandir in time to see him give a very slight and subtle eye-roll. Saying yes meant that Neldiel would beg to visit every day until the bird was healed, and of course she would have to be accompanied by a parent or elder sister. "If it is well with your father, and it does not interfere with your schooling, perhaps you might spend the week here and see how I care for the bird," Ravondir suggested. "Is that acceptable, Brandir?"

Only just refraining from exhaling in relief, the younger ellon nodded. "Yes, it is well. Thank you, Ravondir. I will send her clothing and schoolwork when I return home. But, Neldiel, you must be good. If you make any trouble for Daeradar Ravondir and Daernaneth Halloth, I will hear about it."

"I am a good girl," Neldiel said, sounding mildly surprised. Her father just made a _hmm_ sound. Electing to ignore that, the elfling turned to her dark haired grandfather with a pleading look. "My bird will get better, won't he? He'll learn to fly like a bird should, and he won't have to be broken?"

"Yes, I should think so, daeriel," Ravondir replied.

"It would be so sad," Neldiel whispered, her eyes fixed on the bluebird nestled once more amongst the cuts of the blanket, "to be a bird who couldn't fly. So very sad."

Lord Ravondir was not an ellon known for affection, but he put one arm around the girl's waist and drew her close to his side. "It would be terribly sad. But," he added, and here he lifted Neldiel's chin so their eyes met, "with enough love and care, any broken bird will learn to fly again even in the most hopeless of circumstances. Remember that, daeriel-nín."

"I will remember it," Neldiel promised, and truly she thought it would be a reassuring thing to remind herself of the next time she found a broken bird and the outlook seemed bleak. But that night as she lay in bed in one of the guest bedrooms, her arm wrapped firmly around her favourite doll, it occurred to her that perhaps Ravondir's words of advice hadn't been entirely to do with birds. Snuggling into the bedcovers, she smiled. It was a comforting thought.


End file.
